The most successful businesses are those with confidence in their ability to store, access and use data effectively. Rather than focusing on the nuts and bolts of storage, this view point looks at the data it holds and more importantly, what can be done with it.

This review looks at why small businesses need to stop being complacent about their networks and at what they can do to maintain their competitive edge as they follow the big boys down the route of increasing collaboration and other bandwidth-hungry applications likely to impact on network performance and availability.

Global Network Initiative fails to take off

Lack of staff puts censorship agenda on the back burner

The Global Network Initiative was set up to fight internet censorship in countries such as China

The
Global
Network Initiative (GNI) launched in October 2008 to protect and advance the
human rights of freedom, expression and privacy has still failed to attract any
staff.

The project was focused on promoting online freedoms in countries under heavy
internet censorship, such as China, Burma and Iran.

However, the
Center
for Democracy and Technology, which was instrumental in the GNI's
introduction, explained that it has had difficulty finding someone with enough
expertise to take the agenda forward.

"It exists in name but, although there are members, there are still no
directors," said a source who works for the organisation.

The GNI declaration, signed by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and others, included
strong statements by technology companies promising to limit the amount of data
they share with censoring governments, and to be more transparent about the
extent to which they comply with government restrictions.

The promises were particularly welcomed by human rights activists, following
Yahoo's
leak
of information to the Chinese government in 2007 that led to the arrest of
two internet 'dissidents'.

The companies signing the declaration hoped that the initiative would have a
major impact on government censorship and threats to individual privacy.

Chuck Cosson, senior policy counsel at Microsoft, described the initiative as
a "systemic approach to company practices".

Andrew McLaughlin, director of global public policy at Google, said: "We have
joined this initiative because we know that a wide range of groups working
together can achieve much more than the company acting alone.

"Our next step must be to bring onboard more companies and non-governmental
organisations from around the world."

Meanwhile, Bennett Freeman, president of research and policy at the Calvert
Group, another stakeholder involved in the process, maintained that the
initiative had "immediate potential" to become a guide for companies on how to
comply with government practices and policies.

However, the Center for Democracy and Technology source admitted that
immediate action had not occurred because of a lack of staff.

"We are still trying to find someone qualified enough to take it up," he
said. "We have all been working on it but there is no one yet to handle the
press calls, put procedures in place and put together internal groups. It is a
slow process as no-one is in charge."

Yet the source reiterated that "GNI's staffing efforts have no bearing on the
the impact or effectiveness of the GNI members themselves."